Category: Fiction

On Sale Now!

*Special Tuesday edition!

The Incident Under the Overpass is now available on Amazon! In an attempt at courageous self-promotion, I’ll share some endorsements from early reviews:

“Read It If: you like your supernatural romances set in New Orleans. A delight.” –CravenWild.com

“McClane’s debut novel, set in sultry New Orleans, combines mystery, romance, and a touch of the paranormal…Lacey is an engaging heroine…” -Kirkus Reviews

“Lacey has a wry, self-deprecating narrative voice, enlivened by frequent pop-culture references.” -Kirkus Reviews

“It’s a unique story with great characters and it stands out from many other books in this genre.” –By Hook or By Book
“The backdrop feels familiar enough, but as the pages turn Anne McClane peels away the layers to reveal a tale of intrigue laced with old Louisiana spirit ways.” -Ian McNulty, author of A Season of Night and Louisiana Rambles

And here’s a quick synopsis: When Lacey Becnel awakens under an overpass near her home in New Orleans, she does not yet realize that she’s undergone a profound metamorphosis. Nathan, the dangerously attractive man she discovers at her side, provokes as many questions as answers. As Lacey learns of her emergent abilities, she also finds that nothing will protect her from her growing attraction to Nathan, or his perilous fate.

So here’s the thing about self-promotion–I’ve written in earlier posts (one referenced at the top of this page) how it does not come easily to me. It’s one of the reasons I made sure the review excerpts above are all from people I don’t know personally. Their opinion of the book is not muddied by their opinion of me.

It’s also one of the reasons it’s been so delightful to let After Glows handle the publishing. While I still have a responsibility for promoting my work, it’s no longer all on me.

I’ll conclude with this plug: if The Incident Under the Overpass sounds like a story you might enjoy, I hope you’ll check it out. And if you do, I sure hope the “might enjoy” turns into a “definitely enjoyed.”

*Next week, I’ll return to my regularly-scheduled Wednesday programming. 🙂

by Anne McClane

Witch Wars by T.A. Moorman

Special Tuesday Edition!*

Witch Wars, by fellow After Glows author T. A. Moorman, releases today! It’s available on Amazon (click this link). Here’s a little more about the book:

Tialanna is fated to become the queen of all Underlayes witches. She thinks the worst part of her life is the fact that she’s betrothed to a complete stranger while in love with someone else. She’s in for a rude awakening when she discovers who, and what, she truly is.

Tialanna is about to learn the truth behind several lies, because not only does her life depend on it, but so does the fate of the family she never even knew she had. But hey, life would probably just be boring if she didn’t have to deal with elemental witches, vampires, demons, sorcerers, bindings, spells, lust and betrayal. Right? 

–This book is intended for mature audiences only. It includes depictions of both graphic violence and graphic sex.–

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When you become a Mom, you begin to put yourself last, and your combat boots begin to collect dust. Going to your child’s PTA meetings in full Gothic, especially industrial regalia, is pretty much frowned upon. Especially by your own children, and your teens would die of a heart attack. But, one should not have to completely stop being themselves, uniqueness is greatness. So all of that darkness is put into words in her books, and designs in her jewelry sold in her GothicMoms DarkCharms shop.

Mother of five beautiful children, but by far, more than just that. T.A. Moorman is an artist, a violinist, a seamstress, a crafter, a writer, a blogger, a reviewer, a dark confidant and a darkly dangerous, fiercely protective friend.

 

*This week and next, I’ll be posting on Tuesday instead of Wednesday.

by Anne McClane

Cover Reveal!

I’ve been keeping this under wraps for a little while. But now that the relaunch of The Incident Under the Overpass is less than two weeks away, it’s time to reveal the new cover!

The e-book is available for pre-sale on Amazon, with a delivery date of September 19. For new visitors to this space, here’s the blurb:

It’s been fifteen months since Lacey Becnel’s unfaithful husband suddenly passed away, leaving her to sort through her feelings of anger, love, and loss, and wondering where exactly her place in life should be.

But when she awakens under an overpass near her home, next to Nathan—a man she met just hours before in the streets of New Orleans—she begins a journey of discovery that some might call supernatural. In the days that follow, it becomes clear that Nathan might be the target of a murder plot, and Lacey—somehow—has the power to heal.

The more she becomes embroiled in Nathan’s danger, the more confused Lacey becomes about her feelings for him. Will she ever fully understand her abilities, or will the danger surrounding Nathan bring things to an abrupt end?

And for those of you who’ve been following along, this story—my first novel—was picked up by After Glows Publishing earlier this year. It has been such a pleasure to work with them! This time last year, much like Lacey, I was wondering where exactly my place should be. (In life, not so much; but as an author, yes.)

Writing and publishing are two entirely different endeavors; and there are parts to the work of each that I really enjoy. But ultimately, I want to be able to write stories, and I want to work on improving that skill. With After Glows looking after the publication, I’ve had more time to narrow my focus on just the writing.

I like to think of Lacey as a sensitive, vulnerable woman who is just beginning to understand her strength. And when she realizes its depth, it surprises her. (I think that’s a pretty good description of Lacey through the whole story arc…The Incident Under the Overpass—this book; The Trouble on Highway One—book 2, currently under revision; and the tentatively titled The Epiphany on the Causeway—book 3, which I’ve just begun to write.)

Anyway, I think the Lacey on the new cover really captures both her strength and vulnerability; and she also lets potential new readers know they’re in for an urban fantasy / paranormal romance featuring an unusual supernatural ability.

Thank you, After Glows, for helping to bring Lacey to life!

by Anne McClane

Am I a Plotser?

My favorite jeans. I can no longer wear them outside the house, because of a hole in…the seat of the pants.

There are two terms I’ve encountered in fiction-writing circles: plotter and pantser. A “plotter” is just like it sounds: a writer who composes a story by writing an outline first. A plotter gets the elements of the narrative down in some way, shape, or form—be it index cards, a synopsis, or an old-fashioned Roman-numeral type outline.

A “pantser” is a writer who composes by “the seat of their pants.” No outline or sketch, little to no prep work. A pantser just sits down to write and sees what happens.

In an article I found via Google, the novelist Cindi Myers suggests that there might be some shame in admitting you’re a plotter, because being a pantser could be considered more “artistic.” In it, she goes on to list the benefits of plotting. (Though, this article is housed on a site for an online editing tool called AutoCrit, which I assume has a vested interest in converting more writers into plotters.)

Assessing myself as a fiction writer, I’d say I began as a pantser, but have evolved into a plotter. And I still exhibit traits of both in my day-to-day writing life.

I’m definitely a pantser with these blog posts. Their short length is the reason why I can write them without a plan. If I go off on a tangent, I can afford the time spent on that thread. Because it’s typically portions of an hour, not portions of days or weeks (or months). And even if that thread gets cut, I find the time writing it was usually well spent, because those tangents often help clarify my thoughts.

But, with fiction, I can’t afford to be a pantser. I’ve spent some time in this space bemoaning the breaks I’ve taken from writing. (Some self-induced, others not so much.) It took me six years to get The Incident Under the Overpass to a point ready to publish. I want to be more expeditious with subsequent stories.

Part of the reason my first novel took so long was because I spent the first three years without a plan. I can’t say things got easier once I outlined the story, but I can say my approach to the work improved. I like to think my output improved, too.

I’ve started writing the third and final story featuring Lacey Becnel (the heroine of my first novel.) I outlined it a while ago, and I foresee many changes to that original plot. Also, about nine months ago, I started using some writing software. (I purchased Scrivener—I was sold by numerous testimonials from writers claiming how expeditious it made them).

The point I’m trying to get to is this: in a pantser-ish move, I began to compose the opening to the story before importing/updating that old outline into the program. I was a little surprised to find out that what I wrote hewed pretty close to the outline. So what originally felt like a little pantser rebellion was in truth a loyal plotter move.

Short stories get the same plotter treatment. It’s been about a year since I’ve written one—way longer than I’d like it to be—but I blame Lacey for that. Anyway, it might just be three sentences at the top of a document, outlining the short story arc, but I find it helps tremendously in getting me to the finish line.

Slow and steady, wasn’t it the plodding (plotting?) tortoise who won the race?

by Anne McClane

The Spider Queen

There is a theater company here in New Orleans called The NOLA Project. They’ve been around for more than ten years now, so they don’t really qualify as “newcomers.” But I’ve seen many of their productions over the years, and I’m always struck by how they manage to keep things fresh.

Case in point, there’s their annual spring production in the New Orleans Museum of Art’s sculpture garden. A (sort-of) quick aside: the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden is one of my favorite places in the city. There is something transcendent about the way the sculptures are seamlessly woven into the five acre landscape of mature oak and pine.

And an aside to the aside: the name itself features a bit of New Orleans history. Sydney Besthoff was one of the principals in Katz and Besthoff, or K&B—a pharmacy that dominated the New Orleans cityscape for most of the twentieth century. People of a certain age in this city will still describe a particular color as “K&B purple.”

I’m so inspired by the sculpture garden, I set the final scene of The Incident Under the Overpass there. But I guess I’m not the only one inspired by it. I have to believe The NOLA Project’s latest production, The Spider Queen, was at least partially inspired by some of its sculptures. It’s an original play, written by James Bartelle and Alex Martinez Wallace. James Bartelle is the Associate Artistic Director of The NOLA Project.

I saw The Spider Queen with two nieces on Friday. The play was staged on the patch of ground in front of a sculpture called “Spider” by Louise Bourgeois. It’s the one pictured at the top of this post. (That photo was taken about four years ago, during one of the three cold-ish months we have in New Orleans.)

The most remarkable thing about The Spider Queen was, hands-down, the puppets. There was a bird operated by two puppeteers, and a dragon that (I think) had five puppeteers. The ogres had just one puppeteer apiece:

And the production saved the best for last. Here’s the Spider Queen herself. I think she had six puppeteers:

So, back to the original point I was attempting to make, about The NOLA Project keeping things fresh. The spring production in the sculpture garden is an annual thing, and it’s something I’ve done with an assortment of nieces over the years.

For several years in a row, it was Shakespeare in the garden. It was during Much Ado About Nothing, as I recall, when we had messy crepes filled with speculoos and had to fend off a termite swarm. (The two things are not related. Termites swarm in New Orleans every May, regardless of what’s in your crepe. If swearing off speculoos would keep the termites away, I would do it. Reluctantly.)

As timeless as Shakespeare can be, I’m glad The NOLA Project hasn’t felt compelled to stage the Bard every spring in the sculpture garden. While I’m sure some of the universal human foibles that inspired Shakespeare are still around, it was a lot of fun to see a contemporary composition, inspired by one of the very same places that inspires me.

Not to mention, niece Kate can do a spot-on imitation of the ogres. Much better than I bet Shakespeare himself could have done.

by Anne McClane

Writing Prompts

The very talented Tom put this together.

I’ve been part of a writing group—a writing workshop, I dare to say—since 2013. I count my years-long participation in this group as one of my bona fides as a writer. “Of course I’m a real writer. I meet with other writers regularly in a bar!” You can’t get more legitimate than that.

The group is run by Stephen Rea, author of Finn McCool’s Football Club: The Birth, Death and Resurrection of a Pub Soccer Team in the City of the Dead. (Thank you, Stephen, for helping me meet my word count goal for this post). Stephen runs several different courses of fiction-writing classes at a lovely bar in New Orleans called Treo. If you’re interested, you can find out more about the classes on Facebook here.

The most recent 10-week session for our particular group will conclude tonight. It’s a little bittersweet, because we stumbled upon a bit of alchemy in this last course. We agreed to do a group project, collaborating on two short stories based on a prompt. The prompts were configured as such:

  • Man lying on the ground, woman tapping on both shoulders
  • Woman lying on the ground, man tapping on both shoulders

Everyone committed to writing 1,500 words. Names were drawn each week to determine who would work on which story. I drew the final chapter for the second story—Woman lying on the ground…

The first prompt became “The Fallen Man,” a tale of a woman named Carol escaping men in hazmat suits while trying to protect a young boy named Matt. There’s also the threat of biochemical warfare, an explosion, possible brainwashing, and Atomic Burger.

The second prompt became “Bai Polar,” the story of a woman named Bai Cavallo, who’s either from another planet entirely, or in the midst of a psychotic break. There’s also Glossolalia, cookies and milk, ectrodactyly, and plenty of references to an alien star system.

Brain injury figures into both stories.

There was a fair amount of friendly rivalry as the stories progressed. One group dubbed themselves “Team Awesome,” leaving the other group to dub themselves “Team Awesome-er.” Since I drew the last chapter, several weeks passed before I knew which team I’d wind up on. (It was “Team Awesome-er.”)

I wrote the conclusion to “Bai Polar” on the plane ride back from Europe, and had more fun doing it than I remotely suspected. I got to draw together all the threads sewn by five different writers, and it was a really awesome(er) challenge.

Writing is such a singular occupation, nearly all of the time. I loved this opportunity to be part of team, rallying behind a character and story that we composed together. If this experience is anything like what it is to be part of a “writers’ room” on a television series, then that is an enviable occupation, indeed.

by Anne McClane

Finished, But Not Abandoned

The Tremors on the PCH?

So, this post is going to be chock full of news (and quotes):

First, I finished Lacey’s second story! When I completed the (then-final) draft of Lacey’s first story, The Incident Under the Overpass, I posted something in these pages attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

The second story is by no means ready to be abandoned yet. It is definitely a first draft, not-yet-ready-for-prime-time. Something I read years ago, in Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, has stuck with me:

“You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft—you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft—you fix it up.”

Here’s another quote: “You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” It appears that’s attributed to Jodi Picoult, though Goodreads attributes “You can’t edit a blank page” to Nora Roberts. Either way, in the latest story I wrote, all the characters and the elements of the plot are down. Some might go away, some might get added, but the bones, and a good bit of the musculature, are there. I’m just ecstatic I now have a complete story to revise.

Second, I signed a publishing contract for The Incident Under the Overpass! I signed with After Glows Publishing, a press “that offers page turning romances and urban fantasies that allow readers the escape from real life.” I’m very excited that Lacey will soon be appearing on After Glows’ bookshelf.

So, it turns out, I didn’t abandon Lacey’s first story after all: it will get re-edited, re-designed, and re-released later this year.

And finally, this is my last post from the U.S. for a couple of weeks! I’ll be in Germany for work next week, and then returning home from France the week after that. This upcoming travel was the main reason I was so determined to finish the second story. I knew I wouldn’t be able to devote any real time to it over the first two weeks of May. And I had a good bit of momentum going that would have been lost during that break.

Hopefully, the break will work out for the best, and I’ll be ready to jump into revisions when I get back.

Auf wiedersehen, (and au revoir), for now.

by Anne McClane

#AmWriting

I see this hashtag, #AmWriting, almost daily on one social media platform or another. And without fail, it makes me feel guilty. “Oh, lucky Tweeter in the U.K., there you are, #AmWriting. Or, Facebooker in Indiana, there you are, at it, too.” That’s what I should be doing. Writing. AMWriting. Anne McClane, Writing.

There’s an inherent paradox, there. When I’m looking at social media, I’m most decidedly #NOTwriting.

But…I can say, for the past three weeks, I have been doing a lot more writing. #Writing. Whatever you want to call it, I’ve been getting back into the swing of it.

Speaking of swing, I recently saw a post, I think it was on Facebook, where a writer compared the act of writing to chopping firewood. No one wants to do it, this writer claimed, but if you want to stave off the cold and keep the house warm, you better get to it. Or something like that. I’ve always lived in temperate climates, so the analogy was a little lost on me.

What resonated with me is that writing, most of the time, is a chore. Iterations and iterations. The horror of suffering through brain dumps, raw outputs, to try to sift through to the gold that may or may not be there.

But three positive things (one for each week?) have occurred to me as I’ve gotten back into the habit of writing.

The first: I’ve missed Lacey! (She’s the protagonist in the series of stories I’m in the midst of). You spend too much time with someone, you’re invariably gonna get a little sick of them. But the break I had in writing The Tremors on the PCH, unintentional as it was, must have made my writing heart grow fonder. It’s a nice thing to realize.

The second: I’d really like to do whatever is within my power to keep an unintentional break from EVER happening again. The next break I take from writing, I want it to be of a limited duration, and according to my own plan, my own schedule. And not because I got wrapped around the axle of my own insecurities and anxieties about publishing and promoting. Or caught up in the struggle to balance the demands of my wage-earner job.

And finally: there’s the magic. Speaking of wage-earning, for years, I’ve bemoaned “magic-less” days as a corporate cog in a giant promotional machine. (I’ve worked in marketing for large to mid-size companies for most of my 20+ year career). Not every day is a slog, but there are always those inevitable moments where you feel the life being sucked out of you. Like Count Rugen’s machine from The Princess Bride.

While I can’t go so far as to say that writing puts all that life back; for me, it’s a way to insert the supernatural, the unexpected, the magical, into my day. Another reason I’d be foolish to let the unintentional come between me and #writing again.

by Anne McClane

Thank you, CravenWild

anne-mcclane_overpass_cover_review

A pretty short post today (from my end). It’ll conclude with a link to a review of The Incident Under the Overpass posted by Hermione, blogger at CravenWild. Hermione is a writer and filmmaker in London. Here’s a little something from her profile that really spoke to me:

…I love books, and as a writer and as a human being, I think stories are really important. I don’t think it matters what you read, but that you are open to stories, other kinds of lives and ideas, whether those are fiction or factual.

And here’s an excerpt from her review:

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the location, McClane really evoked a sense of place, and invests her characters with spark and individuality. It’s a pleasure to read this book and immerse yourself in the humour and the mystery, as well as the will-they-won’t-they romance.

Thank you, Hermione. You can read her full review here: Review-The Incident Under the Overpass

by Anne McClane

Courageous Self Promotion

jamm2

I’ll get straight to it: The second issue of science fiction anthology Just a Minor Malfunction released just before Thanksgiving. It’s available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NA9QRAY

If you don’t do Kindle, you could get an alternative digital file by sending $1 via PayPal to michael.s.alter.author@gmail.com

My short story “Lucky Eight” is in this collection. I am honored that my work has been included in both issues of Just a Minor Malfunction.

Thinking about where I was, writing-wise, just one year ago, this feels pretty significant. This blog was just a few months old, and I tried publishing a serialized version of a short story here. I was still months and months away from publishing The Incident Under the Overpass. I had NO IDEA how my fiction would be received.

Twelve months later, I have some idea. Amongst other lessons, I’ve learned that short fiction goes over better when it’s included in a collection of similarly themed stories. (It’s a revised version of that first-published-on-the-blog story—“Holiday Bob”—that appears in Just a Minor Malfunction #1.) I’m very grateful to Michael Alter (Twitter: @Michael_S_Alter ), the editor and creative force behind this anthology, for recognizing something in my work and including me alongside such accomplished writers.

It’s those other writers that make it easier to do this post. Because my aversion to self-promotion hasn’t waned at all. But in this instance, I’m not only promoting my own endeavor, I’m promoting these great collaborative efforts.

More on that aversion: my first inclination was to title this post Shameless Self Promotion. But that didn’t feel right, because I’m not coming to this exercise devoid of shame. And “shameful” isn’t quite right either. Unconfident, or hesitant, is more apt.

Yet, just a few days ago, I read this quote from the novelist Dani Shapiro:

Courage is more important than confidence.

It’s a paraphrasing of some of her reflections on writing and creative work in general (I think). She also has some great things to say about how writers should “embrace uncertainty, to be sharpened and honed by it.”

I can honestly say this—there was very little confidence (about .001), and great gobs of uncertainty (let’s say 510), when I first published “Holiday Bob” on this blog. Multiply those levels about four times, and there’s some idea of what I was feeling publishing The Incident Under the Overpass. So I have to believe there was a modicum of courage underlying those initial efforts. Otherwise, this post would have an entirely different tone to it (a more pessimistic one, most likely). Or maybe, I might have quit posting altogether.

I think there’s something there, about courage, confidence and self-promotion. Promotion is vital to any work that wants an audience. (Twenty years in marketing have taught me that, at least). Promotion is especially vital for independent authors and publishers. And confidence is hard to come by when you haven’t yet found that audience. So take courage. If you believe in the worth of what you’re doing, it’ll get you over the threshold.

by Anne McClane